tabula rasa
by narqueen
Summary: The wind tunnel takes him in pieces. Written for the 2015 MiroSanta gift exchange. [MirSan]


**Warnings:** vague sexual situations, dark themes

 **Pairing:** MirSan

 **a/n:** To Berry, for the prompt "dark". Hope you enjoy!

* * *

 **tabula rasa: in Latin, a scraped tablet (one from which the writing has been erased); (esp. in the philosophy of Locke) the mind in its uninformed original state.**

 **-** _ **Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition**_ **.**

...

 _It takes his finger first._

Sango had always known the wind tunnel would be the death of him, but not like this.

Miroku hides his deformed hand beneath his robes with a string of prayer beads, but Sango can feel it – can feel the space of _something-that-once-was,_ and oh! How hollow it felt, how empty, even if her own body was wholly intact and outwardly healthy. Miroku's fingers had been the ones to slide thread through the slits in her soul, stitching up wounds Sango didn't even know were there until he'd rubbed his lecherous touch over them, pinching the skin back together to help her heal.

Sango's fingers are scarred and thin and covered with the blood of a thousand nameless beasts, devoid of any good ideas or ways to help him.

Miroku is quieter than usual, and Sango despairs over the fact that both of her whole, hole-less hands are less useful than his _holy,_ hole-filled one.

.

.

.

 _It takes his voice second._

At first, Sango believes he is ill _–_ he had been considerably less Miroku-like during the past few days, offering only pained smiles and vague gestures to indicate his thoughts. But one afternoon (after she asks him _Houshi-sama, are you all right?_ ) the smile finally dies on his lips, and Miroku turns away, unblinking as he scrawls something in the dirt with the base of his staff, it's chimes clinking anxiously between them.

Sango reads the message and feels herself go pale.

Like she's the one who needs comfort, Miroku pulls her into his arms, stroking her hair with his unholy hand, pushing air through his teeth, _sh-sh-sh-sh-sh –_

(It's the only sound he can make.)

.

.

.

There is a lingering tension in the air, an unspoken urgency, instigated by the expanding kazaana, to _find Naraku and destroy him,_ which has been their mission all along, though nobody seems to remember that.

Funny, Sango muses, how the imminence of death can stretch and bend the people it touches; like a spreading illness, or spoiling meat, there is a tangible need to fix the situation before it consumes them all, lest they will be forced to escape the danger.

By contrast, Sango has escaped death far too many times for it to be fair – so surely, being killed by the one she loved was merely the universe correcting its own mistakes.

.

.

.

 _It takes his sight third._

On the morning before a new moon, Miroku admits (over paper and ink) that he can no longer see the sun. There is a new vacancy in his gaze, and although his eyes remain a deep blue – _blue like the sea, blue like me,_ Sango likes to think, if she's feeling particularly sentimental – they are all-too aware that Miroku's vision no longer belongs to him.

Wordlessly, Miroku's staff becomes a cane that day; he shuffles behind the group, blindly poking at rock and root in an effort to map a path for himself, grunting every so often when he miscalculates a step.

When she can no longer bear it, Sango offers her hand (like he has done so many times before), hoping to fill his empty spaces – to be his sight and voice and fingers so that he will not fall apart, as the things she loves have a tendency to do.

 _Will you?_ She begs, grasping his palms, doing her best to make the proposition appealing with a physical touch. _Will you let me mend you?_

But Miroku only stares down at her, gaze glassy, _looking-without-really-looking;_ eventually pries his hole-filled hands away from her, curling them into his sleeves, casually answering in the cruelest way possible.

.

.

.

 _It takes his love last._

In the dead of a nameless night – once the embers of the group's campfire are swept away by a bitter, bleak breeze – Miroku rises, robes billowing darkly around his ankles while the gale encircles him. Having been roused by the bite of the wind, Sango awakens just in time to witness Miroku glide into the tangle of trees, melting into the gloom with a tempest at his heels.

Forgetting her friends; forgetting Hiraikotsu; _forgetting herself,_ Sango's mind goes blank as she scrambles to her feet to follow Miroku's shadow, panting, praying, pleading, _please please please_ , lungs burning with cold, sticks resembling bones breaking beneath her tread, _snap snap snap snap –_

A few heartbeats later, Sango finds him in a clearing of weeds. Before she can call out to him, Miroku turns, slowly, _sluggishly,_ his features erased of any emotion – an emptiness only made worse by the looming light of the moon, which bleaches his flesh of all color and charm.

 _Sango,_ he mouths, _run._

Bitter adoration floods her veins, because now she understands _why_.

So Sango strides forward, swallowing her sorrow, reaching for Miroku's shoulders; smoothing the sharp edges of him with trembling fingers, and Miroku shuts his eyes, leaning forward to embrace her, _surrendering._

 _It wants all of me,_ his lips ghost against the bare spots of her skin, _so it wants all of you, too._

 _No, no, no, I won't leave you, I love you,_ Sango sobs, and suddenly Miroku is kissing her, is inside of her, giving her all that he has left, all there is left of him, and she accepts him with open arms and legs, loving all she can. The thorny foliage is rough against Sango's spine and the cyclone is coming closer, _closer,_ closing in, knocking the oxygen from her lungs, making the stars blur behind the storm.

But Miroku breathes into her, breathes _for_ her – something like _I love you, Sango_ – passing his life and love into her body before they are pulled into the void.

Somewhere in the distance, Sango swears she hears a scream.

Inside the kazaana, it is too quiet.

Sango is there, and so is Miroku, holding her in an eternal free fall, and Sango can feel pieces of herself chip off, one by one: Kohaku, Kirara, her father, _taijiya_ , S, A, N, G, O –

.

.

.

Dimly, she is aware that one day she will forget _why she is here_ and _how she came to be_ and _the name of the arms clutching her so tightly, so fiercely, so lovely, so lovingly_ as they descend into nothing and everything forevermore, evermore –

.

.

.

Something is speaking, always speaking.

"I love you, Sango," whispers a voice that is too familiar, too close. "I'll always love you. Never lose that."

The thing pressed to her clenches tighter, burying itself in her shoulder and brain and body. Who was it talking to? Was _she_ Sango? Was this thing always a part of her? It must have been; it's all she knows, all she's ever known.

"You...you love me," she echoes, hesitant, though it feels like she's said it before. "You'll always love me. I will never lose that."

From somewhere beside her (their?) ear, a chuckle reverberates through the gray. It trails over her cheek, kissing the flesh beneath her (their?) temple.

"I love you, Sango. I'll always love you. Never lose – "

.

.

.


End file.
